Ethics & Sustainability
We know that as a fashion label we have a tremendous obligation towards our planet and her beautiful people. We embrace this responsibility for creating ethical work environments and sustainable production practices from the source to the consumer and beyond. We take great pride in our journey so far and strive to continue to improve these efforts going forward.
Here at Keshet, we take our time in developing each print design and garment. The time it takes from initial ideas to finished style is no less than twelve months. Our colourful and exclusive prints are all designed or edited in house by our creative team. Each one is unique, limited, and carefully considered for our customer’s lifestyles and aesthetics.
From there we closely monitor each step of the process in person from the North to South of India. Our creative director, Melodie, is hands-on to ensure confidence that those who produce our clothing are respected, have safe working conditions, and are paid fairly. This happens through extensive research and thorough site visits of each manufacturer. We understand the importance of long term partnerships with our suppliers and take pride in their lives and families being interconnected with ours. They are individually valued members of the Keshet family. We are committed to continuously maintaining and improving these relationships.
Smaller batches and print runs mean your clothing remains unique with less waste for our planet. Our stock is never ever destroyed! We strive to ensure none of our clothing ends up in landfills, a problem that is commonly associated with clothing production and the fashion industry. Our fabric offcuts are used for creative accessories such as face masks, patchwork garments, hats, scarves and scrunchies. Even the scraps from those projects are used as stuffing for footstool cushions. Our range is always limited and exclusive to avoid overstocking. We offer the last of the last products in our Warehouse Sale range to ensure everything sells out.
More about our mission
Our fabrics choices have evolved over the years, and we will continue to prioritise natural fibres whenever possible. The current beautiful line of fabrics includes tencel denim, cotton, cotton corduroy, knitted viscose, stretchy rayon, and cotton jersey. At the moment our fabric is printed with traditional rotary-style screen printing. We are continually testing and sampling new facilities that meet or surpass our standards in every way. These prints are crafted freehand by highly skilled experts in their trade, where the designs are placed by eye. Those authentic irregularities in the motifs are all part of the charm. One of our goals is to move towards digital printing as it is a more environmentally friendly method, as no templates need to be made, less water is used, and only the precise amount of dye needs to be used.
Our products are all handmade with love in open and airy working environments which include fair hourly rates, breaks, 8-hour workdays with the BEST chai tea and Bollywood tunes. Our team consists of men and women with a family practice at its core. No child is ever involved in the production of Keshet designs. Another core principle is our team members’ freedom of employment - everyone that works with us is free and happy to be a part of our community.
We supply a beautiful unique bag to our customers with each purchase. We purchase vintage Saris and give them to women in the community who traditionally can't work due to cultural limitations. From their home, they can sew our bags at their leisure which we then purchase back off of them at a fairly-traded price. We have witnessed the self-value and empowerment that these women are experiencing throughout our journey together.
Once our beautiful garments are ready to go, we prioritise sea freight to ship these items to us, thus reducing the carbon footprint of travel. Everything arrives to us in compostable garment packaging ready for customers to order. When a customer orders, their colourful new looks will be delivered in compostable shipping bags. We collaborate with Hero Pack for our compostable post packs. These fabulous bags are made from home compostable materials, mainly corn starch. To compost them at home, it’s best to remove the shipping label, cut them up and place them in your green lidded food and garden bin. They will completely break down within 90-120 days in a home compost environment. Alternatively, they can be sent to composting facilities. We regularly reassess and redesign our packaging to reduce plastic and waste. All of our printed marketing materials are created with carbon-neutral EcoStar 100% recycled uncoated paper.
Here at Keshet, our vision behind what we create is to bring a product to life which empowers people to feel fearlessly beautiful no matter their shape or size.
We take great pride in our diversity, and our team consists of colourful creatives from all corners of the globe who collaborate here in Tasmania. Our photographers, amazing customer service team, creative graphic and print designers and models are all working locally to create our vision in house.
We strive to show the real stuff. None of our photos are altered for physical appearances in any way. We celebrate that our models are real people just like our customers, and you can often see our in-house staff modelling the looks you see on our website.
We love collaborating with like-minded content creators across Australia as well who encourage body positivity and inclusion.
Distributing the Keshet love to those in need is one of our core values. We regularly donate to the community in Tasmania, greater Australia and even internationally. Each year we are involved in numerous fundraising events supporting local charities and non-profit organisations including Bush Fire and Flood relief. Some Covid19 related campaigns included 10% of all sales donated to Give India to help set up urgent Covid relief saving lives and supporting families. We donated over 80 metres of fabric to a local Tasmanian face mask creator on her mission to make masks accessible and safe.
We know that our work is not done and moving forward we have big dreams and goals including:
1. Transitioning to digital printing to reduce the environmental impact of our garment creation process.
2. Increasing our Sea Freight to reduce the carbon footprint in garments travelling.
3. Expanding our usage of fabric offcuts
4. Introducing circular economy practices within Keshet such as second-hand incentives for our customers to expand and re-use their wardrobe.
We would love to hear from our beloved customers about what is important to you, so feel free to reach out to us at support@keshet.com.au Subject: Ethics & Sustainability
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